IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v21y2012i9p1040-1060.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beware Of Being Unaware: Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Chronic Illness In The Usa

Author

Listed:
  • Pinka Chatterji
  • Heesoo Joo
  • Kajal Lahiri

Abstract

We study racial/ethnic disparities in awareness of chronic diseases using biomarker data from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study. We explore two alternative definitions of awareness and estimate a trivariate probit model with selection, which accounts for common, unmeasured factors underlying the following: (1) self‐reporting chronic disease; (2) participating in biomarker collection; and (3) having disease, conditional on participating in biomarker collection. Our findings suggest that current estimates of racial/ethnic disparities in chronic disease are sensitive to selection, and also to the definition of disease awareness used. We find that African‐Americans are less likely to be unaware of having hypertension than non‐Latino whites, but the magnitude of this effect falls appreciably after we account for selection. Accounting for selection, we find that African‐Americans and Latinos are more likely to be unaware of having diabetes compared to non‐Latino whites. These findings are based on a widely used definition of awareness – the likelihood of self‐reporting disease among those who have disease. When we use an alternative definition of awareness, which considers an individual to be unaware if he or she actually has the disease conditional on self‐reporting not having it, we find higher levels of unawareness among racial/ethnic minorities versus non‐Latino whites for both hypertension and diabetes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Pinka Chatterji & Heesoo Joo & Kajal Lahiri, 2012. "Beware Of Being Unaware: Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Chronic Illness In The Usa," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(9), pages 1040-1060, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:21:y:2012:i:9:p:1040-1060
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.2856
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.2856
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.2856?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorenzo Cappellari & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2006. "Calculation of multivariate normal probabilities by simulation, with applications to maximum simulated likelihood estimation," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(2), pages 156-189, June.
    2. Jones, A., 2007. "Applied Econometrics for Health Economists: A Practical Guide," Monographs, Office of Health Economics, number 000262.
    3. Balsa, Ana I. & McGuire, Thomas G., 2003. "Prejudice, clinical uncertainty and stereotyping as sources of health disparities," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 89-116, January.
    4. Johnston, David W. & Propper, Carol & Shields, Michael A., 2009. "Comparing subjective and objective measures of health: Evidence from hypertension for the income/health gradient," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 540-552, May.
    5. Morenoff, Jeffrey D. & House, James S. & Hansen, Ben B. & Williams, David R. & Kaplan, George A. & Hunte, Haslyn E., 2007. "Understanding social disparities in hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control: The role of neighborhood context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1853-1866, November.
    6. Anna Aizer & Laura Stroud, 2010. "Education, Knowledge and the Evolution of Disparities in Health," NBER Working Papers 15840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Cutler, David M. & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2010. "Understanding differences in health behaviors by education," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-28, January.
    8. Goldman Dana P & Lakdawalla Darius N., 2005. "A Theory of Health Disparities and Medical Technology," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thompson, Owen, 2017. "Black–white differences in self-rated health, 1972–2015," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 69-73.
    2. Thomas, Ranjeeta & Burger, Ronelle & Hauck, Katharina, 2018. "Richer, wiser and in better health? The socioeconomic gradient in hypertension prevalence, unawareness and control in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 18-30.
    3. Galárraga, Omar & Rana, Aadia & Rahman, Momotazur & Cohen, Mardge & Adimora, Adaora A. & Sosanya, Oluwakemi & Holman, Susan & Kassaye, Seble & Milam, Joel & Cohen, Jennifer & Golub, Elizabeth T. & Met, 2018. "The effect of unstable housing on HIV treatment biomarkers: An instrumental variables approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 70-82.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pinka Chatterji & Heesoo Joo & Kajal Lahiri, 2010. "Beware of Unawareness: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Awareness of Chronic Diseases," NBER Working Papers 16578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Chatterji, P & Joo, H & Lahiri, K, 2011. "Beware of Being Unaware: Racial Disparities in Chronic Illness in the US," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/11, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. David Frisvold & Ezra Golberstein, 2013. "The Effect of School Quality on Black-White Health Differences: Evidence From Segregated Southern Schools," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 1989-2012, December.
    4. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace, 2012. "Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 99-111.
    5. Setti Rais Ali & Paul Dourgnon & Lise Rochaix, 2018. "Social Capital or Education: What Matters Most to Cut Time to Diagnosis?," Working Papers halshs-01703170, HAL.
    6. Hernandez, Elaine M., 2013. "Provider and patient influences on the formation of socioeconomic health behavior disparities among pregnant women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 35-42.
    7. Donald S. Kenkel & Maximilian D. Schmeiser & Carly Urban, 2014. "Is Smoking Inferior?: Evidence from Variation in the Earned Income Tax Credit," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(4), pages 1094-1120.
    8. Frisvold, David & Golberstein, Ezra, 2011. "School quality and the education–health relationship: Evidence from Blacks in segregated schools," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1232-1245.
    9. Currie, Janet & Kurdyak, Paul & Zhang, Jonathan, 2024. "Socioeconomic status and access to mental health care: The case of psychiatric medications for children in Ontario Canada," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Silvia H. Barcellos & Leandro S. Carvalho & Patrick Turley, 2019. "Distributional Effects of Education on Health," NBER Working Papers 25898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Carbone, Jared C. & Kverndokk, Snorre, 2014. "Individual investments in education and health," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2014:1, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    12. Frankovic, Ivan & Kuhn, Michael, 2019. "Access to health care, medical progress and the emergence of the longevity gap: A general equilibrium analysis," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    13. Cutler, David M. & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2010. "Understanding differences in health behaviors by education," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-28, January.
    14. Anna Choi & John Cawley, 2018. "Health disparities across education: The role of differential reporting error," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 1-29, March.
    15. Roman Hoffmann & Sebastian Uljas Lutz, 2019. "The health knowledge mechanism: evidence on the link between education and health lifestyle in the Philippines," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(1), pages 27-43, February.
    16. Eide, Eric R. & Showalter, Mark H., 2011. "Estimating the relation between health and education: What do we know and what do we need to know?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 778-791, October.
    17. Albarrán, Pedro & Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo, 2020. "Education and adult health: Is there a causal effect?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    18. Resul Cesur & Bahadir Dursun & Naci Mocan, 2014. "The Impact of Education on Health and Health Behavior in a Middle-Income, Low-Education Country," NBER Working Papers 20764, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jason Fletcher & David Frisvold, 2014. "The long run health returns to college quality," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 295-325, June.
    20. Cutler, David M. & Huang, Wei & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2015. "When does education matter? The protective effect of education for cohorts graduating in bad times," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 63-73.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:21:y:2012:i:9:p:1040-1060. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.